Casanova in Love (Hardcover)

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In his first novel, Ingenious Pain, Andrew Miller told the tale of a man who felt too little; in his second novel, he features a man who feels too much. Set like its predecessor at the end of the 18th century, Casanova in Love follows the fortunes of that legendary lover whose name is now synonymous with womanizer. Miller drew parts of his story from Giacamo Casanova's own Histoire de Ma Vie, and indeed the novel begins in the German castle where the real magilla spent his last years writing his autobiography. There, as the now elderly and frail adventurer burns letters and papers, he is interrupted by a mysterious woman who has come to hear the story of one particular era in his past:

Imagine him now: thirty-eight years of age, big chin, big nose, big eyes in a face of "African tint," a guardsman's brawny chest and shoulders, stepping down the gangplank in Dover harbour.... In the customs house he gave his name as de Seingalt, the Chevalier de Seingalt, a citizen of France. Lies, of course, or something like them, but it pleased him to dream up names for himself; it was also politic. Europe--the parts of it that counted--was a small place, and in his travels he had met at least half the people of influence in the entire continent. "Casanova" was in too many documents, too many secret reports and in the minds of too many people he would rather not encounter again.

After many years spent adventuring on the Continent, Casanova has come to England to find peace, "a span of quietude in which to find himself again; serenity." But he is not the kind of man who can long endure solitude. Soon he has started to accumulate acquaintances. One of them is the great Samuel Johnson; another is Marie Charpillon, a high-priced courtesan who becomes both his obsession and the cause of his eventual downfall. In an age when everyone is reinventing himself, Casanova attempts several guises--laborer, writer, country gentleman--in order to win his paramour, only in the end to come face to face with a darker self stripped of all artifice.

In tracing the course of his character's doomed love affair, Miller takes the reader on a graphic tour of 18th-century London from the glittering soirées of the well-to-do to the filthy flophouses of back street slum-dwellers. This might have been the Age of Enlightenment, but there are still many dark pits of misery and ignorance in this imagined universe. Miller tells his tale of obsession in cool prose that describes in intimate detail his characters' thoughts, and actions, the smells and tastes and textures they encounter, the humiliations and heartbreaks they suffer, yet from a certain detached distance. But in the world that his fictional Casanova occupies, love is a commodity and one with a high depreciation rate at that; in such a world, a little distance is singularly appropriate. --Alix Wilber

From Library Journal

Mais non, this is not the Giacomo Casanova we have come to expect. Miller (Ingenious Pain, LJ 1/97) gives us a 38-year-old Casanova, soul-sick (midlife crisis, they'd say today), gone to England in 1763 to try to revive. There he is befriended by the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson and thrown under the spell of young, beautiful Marie Charpillon. Casanova's maddening attempts to win her continuously fail despite money owed him by her family; frustrated, he tries life as an onion-eater (that is, a laborer), a Grub Street hack, and a squire of a dank country estate. Sometimes funny, sometimes grim, these side trips are the best parts of the book; the section on the underclass would have done Dickens proud. A framing device that allows Casanova hindsight works less well and seems appended only for its rhetorical purpose. On the whole, though, as a trip back in time with a celebrity cast, this is a winner.?Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1st edition (October 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004099
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004096
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,047,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars CASANOVA, THE BUMBLER, March 11, 2000

By A Customer

At the ripe old age of thirty-eight (?), already jaded and weary, Giacomo Casanova decides to "give it a rest" in England. However, he's soon lured back to his old way of life by the lovely, young Marie Charpillon. Marie, however, is no pushover for Casanova's charms and Casanova, himself, seems to have lost his touch. What follows could have been a hilarious farce of the highest order but it falls far short of the mark. The moments of hilarity are too few and too far between and Casanova's philosophical meanderings on the meaning of life and growing old just don't cut it. And, although the character of Casanova is sometimes brilliantly drawn, Marie, the object of Casanova's affections, has to be one of the weakest love interests in the history of literature. The book suffers from long boring stretches between the brilliant flashes of light. The premise, however, remains terrific, and had Miller been able to sustain the random hilarity, Casanova In Love would indeed have been a five star farce. Oh well, maybe next time.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marie is disappointing, April 29, 1999

By A Customer

Andrew Miller writes in fancy English; de Seingalt (Casanova) is a charming man, and the reader does want to know him more. His past is described with great mistery and not so great details; and that provokes the reader to respect de Seingalt more for his past than for his present...one would expect a lot more from the famous seducer than simply buying his way into the young woman's bedroom. The female character Marie Charpillon is a really weak character; hew aunts are a more interesting bunch. The book is still worth reading, the streets and atmosphere of London present some interest, especially when the man who seduced his way into history lingers them with his charming loyal servant Jarba.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I didn't fall in love, October 12, 1999

By A Customer

Miller seems to be a man of great elegance, but somewhere along the way the plot got forgotten. Whereas his first novel, Ingenious Pain, was an original and surprising "bibliography" of a man that never was, this portrait of a real historical character seems to be more shallow and not very inspiring. Three stars for Miller's brilliant style; this time, the substance doesn't satisfy.